Chapter 5
Sun breaks through my windows like an uninvited guest, and it takes me a moment to remember where I am.
But then it all comes back to me. Everything.
Moments flash like lightning: my mother planting new flowers in the garden, Paul bemoaning my uselessness, the duke saying ‘that’s my Little Wolf’ when I successfully completed a mission, my father carrying me on his shoulders in the spring sun. Years’ worth of good and bad experiences are both a lovely and rude awakening to a beautiful day. Some of them I try to hold onto, and others I bury as I reacclimate to my surroundings.
And then I recall meeting the master of the manor yesterday. Alistair. A flashy name for a flashy man. I don’t want to buy Mildred’s explanation of a curse that will force me to remain in Alistair”s company. But the invisible string that dragged me to dinner and the magical wall that prevented me from jumping the fence prove that she’s right.
Whether I like it or not, Alistair and I are stuck together. For now. No curse is going to stop me from getting my freedom.
Resigned to my predicament for the moment, I get up, dressing in my own clothes, which are waiting for me on the foot of the bed, cleaned and pressed. Looking in the mirror, I’m surprised how much better I look after a bath. There’s no dirt on my high cheekbones and sloped nose, and no twigs in my hair. Since I’m rarely this spotless, I choose to leave my hair down.
My knives are securely hidden in my clothes as I leave the room behind. I don’t think anyone here is out to kill me, but one can never be too sure.
The halls are nearly as quiet now as they were yesterday. I know there are more staff here than Milly based on the amount of food that was prepared last night, but I see none of them on my walk. And since I’m fairly certain the manor doesn’t get many visitors other than the women Mildred mentioned, I won’t be able to blend in like I normally do.
It doesn’t take long to find the kitchen—the noise is like a beacon. I peek around the corner and find the place bustling.
A cook stands at the stove beneath a wide window, young men are doing dishes at the sink and maids are cleaning the long wooden table that sits in front of a fireplace on my right. I must have slept longer than I thought if they’re already done eating.
A particularly young maid turns and catches me watching, a smile spreading on her cherubic face. “Good morning!”
The group turns toward me at her loud greeting, and I smile awkwardly at their attention, stepping inside. “Good morning,” I say hesitantly, quietly assessing the bunch.
There are about ten people in the room. The cook is a bald, middle-aged man, and a young girl with too many similarities not to be his daughter stands beside him. There are three young maids watching me with silverware in their hands, frozen in the task of clearing the table. Two young boys with dirty dishes clasped between their fingers stare, half wet with dishwater. And two middle aged women are standing with Mildred, their attention pinned to me.
“Stella,” Mildred greets me, the smile on her face just as genuine as the one from last night. “I’m glad to see you. Did you sleep well?”
“Surprisingly,” I admit, moving further into the room, feeling suddenly self-conscious. My long-sleeved grey shirt beneath a belted bodice is worn and faded, my breeches and tall boots equally beaten down. Normally, I dress for the mission. Sometimes that means dressing down in dirty clothes, and occasionally it means dressing up in nice dresses.
If I’d known what I would be facing on this excursion, I probably would have gone with something that makes me look less like a thief and more like a lady. But I make do with what I have.
“Everyone, this is Stella,” Mildred announces, motioning a maid to grab the plates of food from the counter. “Stella, this is the staff. I don’t expect you to remember their names, but we have Carson and David.” The two dishwashing boys. “Becca, Christine, and Maddy.” The three young maids who cleared the table. The youngest of them, Maddy, who can’t be more than fifteen, is already serving me a plate of eggs, toast, ham and rolls. “Brutus and Kaitlyn,” Milly continues, pointing to the cook and his daughter, who smile at me. “And Tilda, Denise and Franchesca.” The older maids who were speaking to Milly when I walked in.
I nod to all of them, repeating their names three times in my mind as I stare at their faces, cataloguing their most notable qualities. Like the bright red of Franchesca’s short hair, Carson’s buck teeth and Becca’s freckles.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I smile, digging into the generous breakfast. I don’t even consider whether or not the food is safe to eat. I’m starving and if they planned to kill me, they wouldn”t need to resort to poison.
“How are you finding things?” Mildred asks kindly, leaning against the counter.
I swallow a bite of ham. “Fine. I haven’t taken the chance to explore much yet. I wanted to come and ask a few things first.”
“Ask away,” Mildred says, waving a hand. “We’ll do our best to give you the answers.”
No one flinches at her offer of honesty, all of them watching me with unmasked curiosity. I can’t blame them for it, I’m a stranger in their home. But it does make me wonder how many women they’ve had this same conversation with before…
“How many women have been trapped here?” I ask, watching their faces for signs of discomfort. If I can find something they don’t want me to ask, then I’ll know what to look for when I go snooping.
“Eleven,” Mildred replies without issue.
“Who cast the curse?”
Mildred sighs, but I suspect that she’s more disappointed in her information than my question. “We don’t know. It was obviously a Poet, but Alistair was alone when it happened and though I saw the woman, I’d never seen her before and don’t know her name.”
I nod, mulling over her answer. Poets are the only people with magic on the continent, though they’re mostly extinct now. They founded the six countries that make up Trissoe, but two hundred years ago, they disappeared. Since then, humans have taken over the five thrones and magic has become scarce. Our only real source of it is the artifacts the Poets left behind.
There are rumored to be a few Poets still alive here and there, but they’re rare and hard to find. If one cursed Alistair, they must have had good reason to do magic out in the open like that. I wonder what he did to deserve it. Something tells me Milly won’t be explaining that part.
“What are the restrictions of the curse?” I ask, opting not to ask about Alistair and risk offending my only allies.
“Well, I already explained that you cannot leave the grounds,” Milly replies, everyone else getting comfortable, leaning against counters and chairs as they listen to my interrogation. “The master cannot go far from the grounds and we, like you, cannot leave at all. You and the master must be in the dining room at sunset every night. Thankfully, your end of the curse only lasts for three months, while the master’s is permanent so long as the curse continues. You may have also noticed that he does not find you attractive.”
I recoil, slightly offended that she feels the need to point out Alistair’s rude attitude toward my beauty—or lack thereof in his opinion.
“It’s the curse,” David, the young dishwasher says, shrugging his small shoulders. He can’t be more than twelve. “He thinks all women are ugly, even if they’re as pretty as you.”
He blushes immediately, ducking his head, and I turn to Mildred, confused.
“Part of the curse causes him to see all women as unattractive, no matter how beautiful they truly are,” she says. “His reactions to you are not a reflection of your appearance, but rather what he thinks your appearance is.”
“Hm…” I hum, my mouth full of bread. If what they say is true, then it’s not Alistair’s fault that he thinks I’m ugly. It is, however, his fault that he chooses to comment on it out loud. And though I have no interest in helping the man, I am interested in getting myself and the staff free of his curse.
“How does the curse break?” I ask, and everyone immediately slumps, disheartened.
“We don’t know,” Francesca sighs, a basket of fabric hanging from her arm and a frown on her pretty face. “No one does.”
“None of you?” I say, looking at all of them. They each shake their head.
“As I said, Alistair was alone when he was cursed,” Milly shrugs hopelessly. “He was in too much pain to hear her words and I did not arrive until the deed was done. And since we don’t know the name of the Poet, we cannot ask her either.”
I nod thoughtfully, unsure what to make of this new information. I can’t find a single flaw in their story, but that doesn’t comfort me. Because that still leaves an unsolvable curse and a rude housemate for me to deal with.
My mind drifts to Alistair, who looked at me and was left wanting. There is a cavalier air to him, something selfish in his eyes. All he seems to care about is being free of women with madness or a lack of beauty. But I have to acknowledge that so far, he lacks the outright cruelty of the duke.
But what kind of man is sentenced to prison in a manor in the middle of nowhere, with a string of female prisoners and an inability to be attracted to any of them?
I shake my head. I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.